Christianity And Anti Semitism

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and prophetic type, the spirit of which, as utterly
foreign to Greco-Roman spiritual culture as to
Hindu culture, was introduced into world religious
thought by the Jewish people. The 'Aryan' spirit
is neither messianic nor prophetic; to await the com-
ing of the Messiah the irruption Into history of
forces beyond history is foreign to it. Moreover,
the fact that German anti-semitism has evolved into
anti-Christianity must be considered a highly sig-
nificant syinptom. A wave of anti-semitism has
broken upon the world, casting away the humani-
tarian theories of the nineteenth century and daily
threatening to submerge new lands. In Germany, in
Poland, In Rumania, In Hungary this movement is
triumphant, and It is taking shape even in France,
the country most fully saturated with liberal ideas,
where it had suffered a defeat after the Dreyfus affair.
The first alarming signs of the disease can be de-
tected In the publication of Celine's book, 2 a ver-
itable call to a pogrom; and they are also betrayed by
the fact that a growing number of Frenchmen re-
proach Leon Blum with his origins, even though he
is one of the most honest, idealistic and cultured of
political figures In the country. Anti-semitism is
coming to the surface of political life with glaring
obviousness, and the press gives us a daily account of
this process.

The Jewish question, however, is not simply one
of politics, economics, law or culture. It is incom-
parably more profound than that, a religious ques-

2

tion with a bearing upon the fate of mankind. It is
the axis about which religious history turns. How
mystifying is the historic destiny of the Jews! The
very preservation of this people is rationally incon-
ceivable and inexplicable. From the point of view
of ordinary historical estimates it should have van-
ished long ago. No other people in the world would
have survived the fate which has befallen it. By a
strange paradox, the Jewish people, an historic
people par excellence who introduced the very con-
cept of the historic into human thought, have seen
history treat them mercilessly, for their annals pre-
sent an almost uninterrupted series of persecutions
and denials of the most elementary human rights.
Yet, after centuries of tribulation which have
strained its powers to the full, this people has pre-
served its unique form, known to all and often
cursed. No other nation would have resisted a dis-
persion lasting so long without in the end dissolving
and disappearing. But, according to God's impen-
etrable ways, this people must apparently be pre-
served until the end of time. As for trying to explain
its historic destiny from the materialist standpoint,
this is to court certain defeat. Here we touch upon
one of the mysteries of history.

The Jewish problem may be viewed from many
sides, but it assumes a particular importance, as a
problem essentially bound up with Christianity. In
the past anti-semitism was fomented and propagated
above all by Christians, for whom, precisely, it

3

should have been least conceivable. Did not the
Middle Ages witness the persecution and annihila-
tion of the Jews by the feudal knights who thus
avoided having to pay their debts! There can be no
doubt that Christians bear a heavy burden of sin in
regard to the people of Israel, and it is upon Chris-
tians that the duty of protecting them now rests. We
know that this is already the case in Germany. It is
not without value to recall, in this matter, the fact
that Wladimir Solovyev 3 believed the defence of the
Jews to be one of the important missions of his
life. For us Christians the Jewish problem does not
consist in knowing whether the Jews are good or
bad, but whether we are good or bad. For it is more
important that I should consider this question with
reference to myself rather than to my neighbour,
since I am always inclined to accuse him. It must be
sadly confessed that the Christians have not risen to
the height of the revelation they have received, and
have in general been considerably inferior to the
Jews.

The Christians and their Churches have a great
many things to repent. We have just spoken of the
Jewish problem, but we could also mention the
social problem, that of war, that of their perpetual
compliance with the most hideous regimes, and so
forth. The question of inherent Jewish imperfec-
tions is of no importance in principle at this point*
It is futile to deny them, for they are many. There is
in particular a Jewish self-importance which is ir-

4

ritating, but it can be psychologically accounted for:
this people, always oppressed by others, has sought
compensation in the idea of its Election and its high
mission. In the same way, the German people, op-
pressed during the years after the war, found repara-
tion in the idea that it formed a superior race with a
vocation to dominate the world. Likewise the pro-
letariat, the most oppressed class in capitalist society,
finds a remedy for the effects of this humiliation in
the conviction of its own messianic mission, namely
to emancipate humanity. Every individual, every
class or people, defends itself as best it can against
the inferiority complex.

The Jewish people is a strange people reconciling
the most diametrically opposite qualities. Within it
the best traits blend with the lowest, the thirst for
social justice with the tendency towards gain and
capitalist accumulation. The Russian people, be-
cause of its polarized nature and its messianic con-
sciousness, shows certain similarities to the Jewish.
Anti-semites "freely invoke the fact that the Bible
bears witness to the cruel spirit of the Hebrews. But
what people could flatter itself upon exemption from
cruelty? Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians
did they display greater forbearance? Did not the
Greeks, to whom we owe the greatest culture in the
world, show certain imperfections? In truth, every
people must be judged by its greatest heights, not by
its lowest depths. The German people must be
judged by its great philosophers, its mystics, its mu-

5

sicians, its poets, not by its Prussian Junkers and its
shopkeepers. In the same way, the Jewish people,
which has a religious vocation, must be judged by
its prophets and its apostles, and not by its money-
lenders. Everyone is free to have his national sym-
pathies and antipathies. Some people harbour an
acute dislike for the Poles or the Rumanians. It is
scarcely possible to remedy this state of affairs, for
love cannot be ordered and it is difficult to overcome
an unconsidered antipathy. At any rate hatred for a
whole people is a sin in the same category as murder,
and he who harbours it in his heart must bear the
responsibility.

The question we are dealing with here is still more
complex in its reference to the Jews, for they cannot
be classed as a national entity. They lack many ac-
cepted attributes of a nation, and on the other hand
they possess traits which cannot be classified as na-
tional. Israel is a people with an exceptional religious
destiny, and it is this which determines the tragic
element in its historic destiny. How could it have
been otherwise? God's chosen people, who at one
and the same time gave us the Messiah and rejected
him, could not have an historic destiny like that of
other peoples. Their descendants are forever
strengthened and united by the exclusive possession
of their religious destiny. Christians are bound to
acknowledge the Election of the Jewish people, for
their religious doctrine demands it, but they do so

6

most often against their will and try as much as pos-
sible to forget it.

We are living in an age of ferocious nationalism,
of the worship of brute strength, of a veritable re-
turn to paganism. By a strange turn of events, we
are witnessing a process diametrically opposed to
the christianizing and humanizing of human socie-
ties. Nationalism should be condemned by the Chris-
tian Church as a heresy, and the Catholic Church is
not far from pronouncing this verdict. But national-
ism is not the only force which should be held re-
sponsible for implanting anti-semitism. To find the
roots of it one must dig more deeply. There un-
deniably exists a mystical fear of the Jews. True, it
is experienced by creatures of a fairly low cultural
level who can be easily infected by myths and legends
of the most debased variety, but it plays havoc none-
the-less for that.

II

How paradoxical the Jewish destiny is! In fact we
see them passionately seeking an earthly kingdom,
without, however, possessing their own State, a privi-
lege enjoyed by the most insignificant of peoples;
they are fired with the messianic idea of their Elec-
tion to which are related, however, contempt and
persecution at the hands of other people; they reject
the Cross as a temptation, while their whole history
presents nothing but a perpetual crucifixion. Per-
haps the saddest thing to admit is that those who

7

rejected the Cross have to carry it, while those who
welcomed it are so often engaged in crucifying
others.

Anti-semitism takes many forms which can evi-
dently exist together and support each other. I shall
not pause over the anti-semitic feelings of the average
man, displayed in sarcasm, comical imitations and a
contempt for the Jews whom he refuses to treat as
his equals; although these do not play a minor part,
they are in principle irrelevant, since they are gen-
erally unconnected with any ideology. It is in racial
anti-semitism, the variety which is anyhow most
widespread, that a real ideology appears. Germany
is its classical cradle, and we find that even her most
outstanding and famous men such as Luther, Fichte
or Wagner felt hostile to Israel. This ideology holds
that the Jews are an inferior race despised by the
rest of humanity to whom they are themselves hos-
tile. But, on the other hand, it considers this inferior
race to be the strongest, eternally triumphant over
all the others wherever free competition exists. Is
there not a certain contradiction here?

Racial anti-semitism is plainly ruled out for the
Christian, since it is inevitably barred by the uni-
versalism of his faith. This universalism, precisely, is
the cause of the persecution of Christians in Ger-
many, Christianity proclaimed that there was no
longer Greek nor Jew. It speaks to the whole of
humanity and to every individual irrespective of his
race, his nationality, his class and his social position*

8

Not only racial anti-semitism, but racialism pure
and simple does not bear criticism from three points
of view: religious, moral and scientific. The Chris-
tian cannot accept it, for it is Inhuman, it rejects the
dignity and the value of man in admitting that he
can be treated as an enemy who may be destroyed.
Racialism presents the crudest form of materialism,
singularly cruder than that of economic materialism.
It corresponds to an extreme determinism and a final
negation of spiritual freedom. Members of the out-
cast races suffer the fatal consequences of their blood
and cannot hope for salvation. Economics depends
upon ideas, not upon physiology and anatomy, and
its determining factors are after all not conditioned
by the shape of the skull and the colour of the hair.
Thus, racial ideology is dehumanized in a greater de-
gree than proletarian ideology. From the standpoint
of social class, in fact, a man may gain salvation by
proceeding to transform his conscience, for example
by adopting the Marxist conception of the world.
Even if he is by birth a bourgeois or an aristocrat he
can hope to become a people's commissar. Neither
Marx nor Lenin was a proletarian. From the racial
point of view, however, the Jew can have no salva-
tion; neither conversion to Christianity, nor even
adherence to national socialist doctrine can help him
in the least. Blood overrules any development of
conscience.

From the purely scientific point of view racialism
is yet again inconsistent. As a matter of fact, con-

9

temporary anthropology considers the very concept
of race to be extremely dubious. Racialism is really
founded upon mythology rather than upon science.
The category of race depends not at all upon anthro-
pology and history, but upon zoology and prehistory.
History is only conscious of nationalities, the result
of a complex inter-mixture of blood. The notion of
the chosen Aryan race is a myth developed by
Gobineau, 4 a remarkable artist and highly sensitive
thinker who intended to justify not anti-semitism
but aristocratism; at any rate, his value as an anthro-
pologist is more than debatable. The notion of the
chosen race is a myth of the same order as that of the
chosen class. But a myth can be very effective in
practice; it can carry an explosive dynamic energy
and move the masses to action, for they are not much
concerned with scientific truth, nor with the plain
truth either. We live in an era especially fertile in
myths, but their quality, alas, is of a low order. The
only serious racial philosophy to have existed in
history is that of the Jews. The synthesis in which
blood, religion and nationality were fused, the faith
in a people's Election, the concern for racial purity,
are so many ideas of Jewish origin. I sometimes
wonder whether the German racialists are aware of
the influence they submit to. Racialism contains pre-
cisely no Aryan element. The Hindu and Greek
Aryans were far more in favour of individualism. At
the same time there is a profound difference between
Jewish and German racial philosophies. The former

10

is universal and messianic, while the latter is an
aggressive particularism aiming to conquer the
world. This racialism undeniably marks a lament-
able relapse into barbarism and paganism.

There is also a form of anti-semitism which may
be called political and economic, for here politics
serves as the tool of economics. It is a particularly
vile variety, since it springs from the idea of compe-
tition and the struggle for superiority. The Jews are
accused of speculation and of self-enrichment at the
expense of other peoples. Most often, however, it
appears that those who accuse them reveal not so
much a contempt for this kind of risky enterprise,
as a desire to go in for it themselves and finally to
triumph over the Jews. In these circumstances, it
will be agreed that the argument loses something of
its value.

Still more often hatred of the Jews corresponds to
the need of having a scapegoat. When men feel un-
happy and connect their personal misfortunes with
historic ones, they try to make someone responsible
for it. This state of mind does not of course do
honour to human nature, but man is so constituted
that he feels relief and satisfaction when he has
found a culprit whom he can hate and on whom he
can take reprisals. Now nothing is easier to exploit,
in men whose thought is crude and credulous, than
the culpability of the Jews. The emotional soil is
always ready to receive the myth of the Jewish world
conspiracy, of the secret forces of Jewish freemasonry,

11

etcetera. I think it beneath my dignity to refute at
this point the authenticity of the 'Protocols of the
Elders of Zion', 5 for any man who has preserved a
rudimentary psychological sense realizes, in reading
this counterfeit document, that it is nothing but a
shameful falsification by the detractors of Israel.
Moreover, it can now be considered as proved by the
police that this document is a fabrication from be-
ginning to end. I sometimes happen to meet men
who try to blame someone for every iniquity and
are ready to attack the Jews, the Freemasons, et-
cetera. When they ask: 'Well, then, whose fault is
it?' 'What!' I reply: 'Whose fault? You and I are
mostly to blame/ This accusation is the only one
which seems to me worthy of Christians.

Besides I find something humiliating in this fear
and hatred of the Jews; the result is that people
regard them as very powerful, and think themselves
unable to stand up to competition with them. The
Russians were inclined to believe that they were
weak and powerless when they possessed an immense
State with an army, a Secret Service and a police
force, and they used to regard the Jews, who were
deprived of elementary human rights and persecuted,
as invincible in the struggle. There is something
childish in this. The pogrom is not only a shameful
and inhuman thing: to me it is a sign of terrifying
weakness and incompetence. In fact, if we return to
the source of anti-semitism, we will find a confession
of lack of ability, for how are we to interpret the

regrets we hear expressed that Einstein who dis-
covered the law of relativity, Freud 6 and Bergson
are of Jewish origin, if not as the resentment of men
themselves devoid of talent? These reactions con-
tain an element which is pitiable. As I see it, there
is only one way to fight against the alleged Jewish
domination in science and philosophy, and that is to
get on with research ourselves, to make great dis-
coveries ourselves. Here we can only fight by pro-
ducing our own creations, for the realm of culture is
that of liberty. Now liberty is a test of powers. And
it would be humiliating to think that this liberty
could always be in favour of the Jews, to the detri-
ment of the others.

Another grievance against the Jews must be faced.
They are accused of having laid the foundations of
capitalism and socialism. But it would seem desirable
as much for supporters of capitalism as for those of
socialism to give some credit to the 'Aryans'. After
all, one can't surrender everything to the Jewsl Yet,
indeed, it is they who have made all the scientific
discoveries, distinguished themselves as eminent
philosophers, founded capitalist industry, recruited
the world socialist movement, concentrated into
their hands public opinion, the press, etcetera. I
avow that as an 'Aryan* my self-respect is wounded,
and I refuse to accept this point of view. I will pause
to consider the creation by the Jews of capitalism
and socialism.

To begin with, if a reproof has to be formulated

on both counts, no single person can utter it. Indeed,
if the fact that the Jews founded capitalism is re-
garded as a virtue by supporters of that regime, their
contribution to socialism is praiseworthy from the
point of view of socialists. A choice must therefore
be made between these two accusations. A well-
known work by Sombart 7 argues that the Jews played
a predominant part in the birth of capitalism. Actu-
ally European capitalism saw the light of day among
Florentine merchants. 8 None-the-less, that the Jews
took an active part in its development is beyond
question, likewise the fact that they amassed great
sums of capital in their hands. Their particular qual-
ities, developed in the course of history, counted for
much in this process. If the Jews practised usury in
the Middle Ages, it must not be forgotten that this
was the sole profession permitted to them at the
time. I think it an injustice to stigmatise the Jewish
race with having created the figure of the usurer and
the banker, while pretending not to know that it has
created equally the model of the idealist, completely
devoted to an idea, of the unworldly living entirely
for higher purposes. Further, if we admit that the
Jews were active in founding capitalism, we can
hardly deny that the 'Aryans' laboured eagerly in
the same cause. Those who reproach the Jews with
having begotten capitalism are not generally oppo-
nents of this regime, and their invective springs
mainly from a feeling of spite or envy, a desire to
predominate in competition. It is curious to observe

14

that Karl Marx, a Jew and a socialist, was in certain
respects anti-semitic. In his article on the Jewish
question, which worries a great many Marxists, he
accuses the Jews of introducing capitalist exploita-
tion. Thus Marx's revolutionary anti-semitism re-
futes the legend of the Jewish world conspiracy.
Marx and Rothschild, though both Jews, are im-
placable enemies and could not co-operate in one
and the same conspiracy. Marx fought against the
power of capital, Jewish capital included.

The second allegation, to the effect that the Jews
instigated socialism and have been the chief agitators
of revolutionary movements, can apparently come
only from those who feel no disdain for capitalism
and would like to protect the regime. To this we
shall reply that in all revolutions those elements
which are wronged and oppressed, whether they be
nationalities or classes, will always play the biggest
part. That is why the proletariat has always raised
the standard of revolt. For my part, I hold that their
championing of a more equitable social order is to
the honour of the Jews.

To tell the truth, all the attacks can be finally re-
duced to a single complaint: the Jews aspire to
power and world domination. This reproach would
have a moral meaning on the lips of those who ab-
jured power and dominion. Alas! the 'Aryans' and
the 'Christian-Aryans' whose faith exhorts them to
seek the kingdom which is not of this world have
always been infatuated with worldly supremacy. Not

15

only have the Jews never had world sovereignty,
but they have never had even a particle of sov-
ereignty, while Christians have been in possession
of mighty states and have pursued a policy of ex-
pansion and empire.

Let us now turn to the type of anti-semitism with
a religious basis, the most serious type and the only
one worthy of study. It is chiefly this variety that
Christians once professed. It holds the Jews to be a
race reproved and accursed, not by reason of the
blood in their veins, but because they rejected Christ.
Religious anti-semitism is, in fact, confused with
anti-Judaism and anti-Talmudism. The Christian re-
ligion actually is opposed to the Jewish religion in
the form it took after the refusal to see the awaited
Messiah in Christ. The Judaism which preceded
Christ's coming, and that which succeeded it, are
two distinct spiritual manifestations. A profound
paradox must be observed in the fact that the divine
incarnation, the assumption by God of human form,
arose in the heart of the Hebrew people, to whom
this mystery was even less acceptable than it was to
the pagans. Indeed, the idea that God could become
man seemed a sacrilege to the Jews, an assault upon
divine power and transcendence. For them God is
continually active in our human life, even in its
slightest details, but he does not become unified with
man, never fuses with him and could not borrow his
likeness. There lies the gulf separating the Christian
conscience from the Jewish. Christianity is the re-

16

ligion of God-humanity, and trinitarian, while
Judaism is a pure monotheism. Indeed the chief re-
proach uttered by the Jews against Christianity is
that it constitutes a betrayal of the One God in
whose place it puts the Trinity. Christians base
their religion upon the fact that there appeared in
history a man who called himself God, the Son of
God. Now, to the rigid Jewish conscience, man can
only be prophet or Messiah, but never God. The
man who could take this title as his own is not the
true Messiah. Here is the crux of the universal
religious tragedy. The pagans had many god-men
and men-gods; according to them the gods were
always immanent in human and cosmic life. More-
over, they had no difficulty in admitting the incarna-
tion; indeed it harmonized with their aesthetic con-
ception of the world. It was not so with the Jews.
Among them no man could look upon God's face
and live. However, the question suddenly arose not
merely of looking upon it, but of recognizing it in
human features. Worse still, the Jewish conscience
was faced with a yet more insuperable obstacle. It
had never conceived of a God other than great and
powerful; now, as the highest temptation, it was
offered a crucified God to worship. God's humilia-
tion, willed by God himself, seemed a sacrilege, a
betrayal of the ancient faith in the glory and majesty
of God. These beliefs, hard-set and deeply rooted,
gave rise to the rejection of Christ.

So throughout Christian history voices were raised

to anathematize the Jews, guilty of having crucified
Christ, and to assert that from then onwards they
bore a curse, which they brought upon themselves
when they allowed the blood of Christ to fall upon
themselves and upon their children. Christ was re-
jected by the Jews because he was not the Messiah
who should found the kingdom of Israel, but re-
vealed himself as a new God, suffering and humili-
ated, preaching a kingdom not of this world. The
Jews crucified Christ, Son of God, in whom the
whole Christian world believes. Such are the argu-
ments used by the detractors of Israel who overlook
the fact that their condemnations betray a serious
omission. It is this: if Jews rejected Christ, Jews
none-the-less were the first to follow him. Who were
the Apostles, forming the first Christian community,
if not members of the Jewish race? Why, then, see
only the backslidings and ignore the virtues? The
Jewish people cried 'Crucify him! Crucify him!'
But have not all peoples shown an extraordinary
propensity to crucify God's messengers to them, their
teachers and their great men? Everywhere prophets
have been stoned. The Greeks condemned Socrates,
the greatest of their sons, to death by hemlock.
Should we on that account curse all their progeny?
Besides, when we go a little further into the ques-
tion we shall be forced to admit that the Jews have
not been the only ones to crucify Christ. In the
course of a long history, the Christians, or rather
those who have usurped the title, have by their deeds

18

contributed to this torture. They have done so,
among other things, by their anti-seniitism, their
hatred and their violence, their submission to the
powerful of this world, their betrayal of Christ's
truth which they have adjusted to their own in-
terests. Well, it is better to renounce Christ openly
than to use his name for opportunist motives while
building one's own kingdom.

When Jews are cursed and persecuted because
they crucified Christ, the principle of generic venge-
ance is accepted. This principle was inherent in the
Jewish people as in all peoples of antiquity. But this
sort of vengeance is unalterably opposed to Chris-
tianity, for it contradicts the Christian idea of
individual dignity and responsibility. Besides, Chris-
tian morality permits no vengeance of any sort,
neither that aimed at the individual nor that which
spreads and becomes transmitted to all the descend-
ants. Vindictiveness is sinful, and it is right to repent
of it Descent, race, reprisals all these notions are
foreign to pure Christianity; they have been brought
into it from outside and derive from the paganism
of antiquity.

Ill

The Jewish problem is connected with the histo-
riosophic theme of the Second Coming. Does the
kingdom of God belong exclusively to the other
world, or may we await it and prepare for its coming
here and now? Christ said 'My kingdom is not of

this world'. From these words It has generally been
deducted that efforts aimed at bringing it about were
in vain. It was sadly confirmed that our earthly city
could not possibly be removed from the power of the
prince of this world, although indeed the latter was
highly venerated by professed Christians. Upon this
notion was constructed the Christian state, in which
no evangelical truth was realized. However, Christ's
words may have another meaning; they may mean
that the kingdom of God does not resemble earthly
kingdoms, that its foundations are different, that its
justice is diametrically opposed to the law obtaining
here below* In this case the Christians would be
wrong to submit to the prince of this world, wrong
not to labour in promoting the justice of God's king-
dom not to take up the task of transforming this
world.

Jacques Maritain, 9 leader of French Thomism and
defender of true Christian humanism, has written
a remarkable article on Judaism which has been
published in a collection of essays called The Jews. 10
In it he makes an interesting distinction between
the Jewish and Christian vocations. In his view the
Christians welcomed the supernatural truth of
Christianity in its relation to heaven, while they
neglected the realization of justice in social life. The
Jews, on the other hand, rejected the supernatural
truth of Christianity, while they appointed them-
selves the messengers of truth on earth, the pro-
moters of justice in collective life. It is a fact that the

20

idea of social justice was introduced to the human
conscience chiefly by Judaism. The ancient Hebrew
prophets were the first to demand truth and equity
in social relations, the first to espouse the cause of
the humble and the oppressed. The Bible gives us
an account of a periodic redistribution of wealth, the
aim of which was to avoid its being monopolized by
one group and thereby to eliminate the radical dis-
tinction between rich and poor. 11 The Jews, as we
have seen above, took an active part in the world
socialist movement, directed against the power of
capital. The 'Aryans', for their part, easily came to
terms with inequity. Thus, in India, a caste regime,
sanctioned by the religious conscience, was set up.
In Greece, the greatest philosophers did not reach
the level of condemning slavery.

Christians freely proclaim that the kingdom of
God cannot be attained without the Cross. In this
they are completely right. Everything on our sinful
earth must be raised upon the Cross before it can
enter the kingdom of God. But they delude them-
selves when they hold this axiom up against every
attempt to clear the way for the achievement of
Christ's justice upon this earth. The unfortunate
thing is that the Christians, while accepting the
Cross, should have neglected to put its message into
practice; although the final realization of God's king-
dom is impossible in this world and implies its trans-
figuration, a new heaven and a new earth. Moreover,
the representatives of historical Christianity, that is

to say Christianity adapted to the conditions of this
world, were not in the least disdainful of the things
which are Caesar's. Quite the reverse: they acknowl-
edged them as their own and consecrated them. Now
Caesar's kingdom was just as far removed from or-
dinary human justice as from Christian justice, and
neither equity nor humanity was known to it. Such
were, in the past, the 'Christian States', the Chris-
tian theocracies, as they came into being both East
and West.

The current objection expressed by the Jews
against Christianity is that the Christian faith cannot
be realized, and that those who profess it have
proved this only too well. This faith demands a
morality so high that its laws are often in conflict
with human nature. To support their argument the
Jews point to Christian social life, so unlike that
advocated by Christ, and confront Christianity with
their own faith which can be, and has been, put into
practice. Salvador, an eminent French Jewish thinker
and scholar of the mid-nineteenth century who wrote
one of the first lives of Jesus, developed this theory.
Rosenzweig, 12 a notable Jewish religious philosopher
who, with Martin Buber, 13 translated the Bible into
German, formulated the difference between Judaism
and Christianity in a curious way. According to him
the Jew is destined by his religion to remain in the
Hebrew world of his birth and should confine him-
self to improving and perfecting his Judaism. He is
not required to abdicate his nature. This is the

reason why the Jewish faith can be easily achieved.
Now the Christian is by nature pagan; in order to
carry out the precepts of his faith he has to withdraw
from the world to which he belongs, repeal his na-
ture, and break with his original paganism. This is
what makes the Christian faith so difficult to apply
in practice. We are reduced to inferring from these
assertions that the Jews, in short, are the only ones
who are not born pagans. In making this distinction
Rosenzweig reaches a conclusion in favour of Juda-
ism. For my part I think his assertions do honour to
Christianity. The Divine Revelation is drawn from
another world and naturally seems ill-adapted to
this world, naturally requires an advance along the
line of greatest resistance. Having said this, we must
agree that the Christians have done everything to
discredit their faith in the eyes of their adversaries.
They have terribly abused the argument of its in-
accessibility. They have drawn the most harmful
deductions from the doctrine concerning human
nature, invoking this in order to yield to sin and to
contrive a system enabling them to adapt themselves
to it. Constantin Leontyev, a very sincere and acute
thinker, is in this respect especially instructive. He
reduced Christianity to the salvation of the soul in
the next world, to what he called 'transcendent ego-
ism' and rejoiced because Christian justice could
never be instituted on earth, for this achievement
would have been out of harmony with his pagan
aesthetic. Borrowing Rosenzweig's terminology, we

23

can say that Leontyev 14 remained In his pagan world
and only wished to withdraw from it with the help
of monastic asceticism in order to save his own soul.
We must admit that these errors have done the
greatest harm to Christ's cause; but do not let us
forget that they must be imputed to Christians and
not to Christianity.

IV

Can the Jewish problem be resolved within the
bounds of history? That is a tragic question. What-
ever the answer may be, the solution does not seem
to lie in assimilation, the nineteenth century's hy-
pothesis which did honour to its humanitarian feel-
ings. Today, alas, we are not living in a century of
mercy, and the events we are witnessing give us
little hope of seeing the problem solved by the fusion
of Jews with other peoples. Besides, we must observe
that this solution would have meant their disappear-
ance. There is likewise no room for optimism on the
ground that this riddle will be answered by the es-
tablishment of an autonomous Jewish state, in other
words by Zionism. The Jews experience persecution
even in the land of their forefathers. In any case
this solution does not, in our view, appear to con-
form with the messianic mission of the Jewish
people. Israel is and remains a wandering people.
It might be said that its destiny is eschatological and
will find no solution till the end of time. This
hypothesis is not, however, a reason for Christians

to cast off their human duties to the Jews. In the
Apostle Paul we find mysterious words wherein he
affirms that all Israel shall be saved. These words
are variously interpreted, for some understand by
Israel not only the descendants of the Hebrew
people, but also Christendom, that is to say, the new
Israel. At all events, it is very possible that the
Apostle Paul had in mind the conversion of the Jews
to Christianity and attached a particular value to
this.

If we are witnessing the development of an insane
anti-semitism we are also witnessing at the same time
an increase in Jewish conversion to Christianity.
This manifestation is of no interest to racial anti-
semites for whom the material fact of blood over-
rides the spiritual fact of faith. But so-called religious
anti-semites ought to see in this conversion the only
possible solution to the problem. For my part I am
inclined to think there is indisputable truth in this.
At any rate, there should be no possible ambiguity
upon this subject. There can be no question of the
Christians' demanding that the Jews be converted
by holding a knife at their throats and, should they
refuse, of regarding the pogrom as a natural sanc-
tion; this would be nothing but a monstrous moral
aberration utterly unrelated to faith. In that case,
why not demand the conversion to Christianity of
various 'Aryan' peoples who have remained aloof
from it or who maintain a purely external Chris-
tianity? Conversion to Christianity is, moreover, an

25

essentially personal thing, and It is doubtful whether
we shall be able to confer upon the whole peoples
the title of 'Christian* or 'Anti-Christian' in the
future.

In order that Jews may become converted it is of
the highest importance that Christians should make
a start by getting converted themselves, that is by
becoming real believers and not formal ones. Those
who hate and crucify have no claim to be called
Christians, whatever external forms they may adopt.
For it must not be forgotten that professed Chris-
tians are the principal obstacle to the conversion o
the East, to that of the Chinese and Hindus. The
state of the so-called Christian world, with its wars,
its national hatreds, its colonial politics, its oppres-
sion of the working classes, presents a formidable
temptation. Those of the faithful who think they
are the most just, orthodox and pious it is precisely
they who are held in the greatest contempt by the
lowly. Christians thrust themselves in between Christ
and the Jews, concealing the true image of the
Saviour from them. It is possible for the Jews to
acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah, for this tendency
already exists in the heart of Judaism; it is possible
for them to declare the historical and religious error
which resulted in the rejection of Jesus to be a fatal
one. But in so doing they will recognize the crucified
Messiah and, through him, the humiliated God.

The forms taken by present-day persecution of the
Jews amount, from the Christian point of view, to a

final condemnation of anti-semitism. In this fact
must be found the virtue of Nazi racialism. This
doctrine has deep roots in Germany, but they do not
draw sustenance from Christian soil. To me this is
some relief. I consider that anti-semitism based upon
orthodoxy, the kind which is widespread for ex-
ample in Rumania, is infinitely more harmful, for it
compromises Christian faith and is not even worth
seriously refuting. Anti-semitism is fatally sure to
develop into anti-Christianity; it must reveal its anti-
Christian nature. That is what we are seeing today.
Corresponding to this phenomenon, a process of
purification is going on within Christianity itself;
Christian truth is freeing itself from the accretions of
the centuries. Thanks to these, Christian truth had
been adapted to the regimes in power, to everyday
social conventions, to a lower level of conscience and
culture, and had been made use of for particularly
worldly ends. This process of purification, which we
owe partly to the fact that Christians are themselves
being persecuted, has brought two forms of Chris-
tianity into relief: the old, tenacious of the acquired
deformities, and the new, trying to get rid of them
and to renew its promises of fidelity to Christ and to
the evangelical revelation of God's kingdom. At all
events, true Christians, free from all formalism,
nominalism and conventionalism, will always be a
minority.

The concept of the Christian state, which
amounted to a serious lie and a depreciation of

27

Christianity, will henceforth exist no more. Chris-
tians will struggle in the spirit, and, by doing so, will
be able to exert an inner influence which they had
lost. To this end they will have above all to uphold
justice and not power which enables them to prosper.
It is they, precisely, who will have to come forward
to defend the dignity of man, the value of every
single human being, irrespective of his race, his na-
tionality, his class and his position in society. It is
Man, the human ideal, freedom of spirit that the
world is attacking from every side. The attack is
carried out partly through the anti-semitic move-
ment which rejects human dignity and human rights.
The Jewish question is a test of the Christian con-
science and of its spiritual strength.

There have always been, and there always will be,
two races in the world, and the boundary between
them is more important than any other; crucifiers
and crucified, oppressors and oppressed, persecutors
and persecuted. It is superfluous to specify which
one Christians should belong to. Of course, in history
the roles can be reversed but that does not alter the
truth. Today Christians are being persecuted as in
the early centuries. Today Jews are being persecuted
as so often before in history. These facts are worth
thinking about.

Russian anti-semites, living in a condition of
morbid emotion and obsession, allege that the Jews
rule Russia and oppress the Christians there. This
assertion is deliberately false. It was not the Jews in

s>8

particular who were at the head of militant atheism;
'Aryan' Russians also played an active part. I am
even inclined to believe that this movement rep
resents a specifically Russian phenomenon. A noble-
man, the anarchist Bakunin, was one of its extreme
representatives, as was Lenin too. It was precisely on
the subject of Russian nihilism and the inner dialectic
of its nature, that Dostoievsky made such sensational
revelations. It is just as false to maintain that Jews
are ruling Russia. Lenin was not a Jew, neither were
the principal leaders of the movement, nor the
masses of peasants and workers who ensured the
triumph of the revolution. Those who were Jews
have been shot or imprisoned. Trotsky has become
the object of an unanimous hatred. It would be
infantile to conceal the facts that the Jews played
their part in this social upheaval, that they formed
an essential element of the revolutionary intelli-
gentsia, but this behaviour can be explained by their
previous position as oppressed people. That the Jews
took part in a fight for liberty I think a virtue. That
they too resorted to terror and persecution I con-
sider not the outcome of any specific Jewish quality,
but of the hideous character of every revolution at a
certain phase in its development. In fact, the Jews
were by no means Jacobins in the terror, and besides,
they form today an impressive percentage of Russian
emigres.

I recall that at the time I was still in Soviet Russia
the owner of the house I lived in, who was a Jew,

29

used often to say to me: *You don't have to answer
for Lenin being a Russian, while I shall have to
answer for Trotsky being a Jew. Isn't that a flagrant
injustice?' As things turned out, he had the good
fortune to return to Palestine. As for me, I am ready
to accept my share of responsibility for Lenin's
coming to power. Unfortunately, facts do not exist
for those whose thought is determined by resentment
and befogged by emotions and crazy obsessions. Only
a spiritual cure can open their eyes and give them a
glimpse of realities in their true light.

COMMENTARY AND NOTES

For

Cecilie Sarah Spears
1908-1936

THE PROBLEM of antl-semitism Is a perennial one. It has
for over two thousand years tested the strength of man
in his efforts to wrestle with it and even now, after the
slaughter of six million victims and the continued perse-
cution of those who somehow survived the Hitlerian
cataclysm, the problem remains a formidable challenge
to his conscience and to the Christian world. Let it not
be thought that anti-semitism reveals itself only in mass
carnage and in the sacrifice of a whole people. It exists
in an attitude which expresses itself albeit sometimes
innocently in a myriad form of slander, prejudice and
intolerance. The difference is not one of kind, but only
one of force and emphasis. The former is the more
demoniac that assaults the mind, the latter corrodes it
slowly, tortuously, but none the less surely. Both can
only lead to the spiritual poverty of man and his deg-
radation. Such would be the ultimate effect of a
phenomenon that has afflicted Western civilization
throughout its whole history, alike in time and in space.
Some indications of its enigmatic features can be gath-
ered from the vast literature that has sprung up en-
deavouring to assign to anti-semitism causes of varying
character and order. 15 It is only natural that it should

33

have attracted historians, sociologists, theologians and
psychologists and summoned their wisdom and research
to its analysis. Nor can it be said that their labours have
been in vain. There has been a great temptation on the
part of many to claim for their individual studies a con-
clusiveness as bewitching as it is unmerited; but it can-
not be denied that their work has vastly broadened the
general historical background of anti-semitism and laid
bare its multifarious ramifications. 16 It is not my purpose
here to dilate upon the different definitions and causes
of anti-semitism but it is necessary briefly to indicate
their main trends.

Of the many theories which have been propounded
one maintains that anti-semitism is the universal ex-
ample of xenophobia, in this case a primitive dislike of
the Jews as representing a group which is different, un-
familiar and strange and it is this quality of 'otherness'
in the Jew which is the primary cause of hostility
towards him. 17 The economic theory has it that the
basic cause of anti-semitism must be sought in the role
of Jews in the modern world as the alleged forerunners
of capitalism and that the peculiar position they occupy
in the economic structure of modern society makes them
the object of hatred for those who are dissatisfied with
that structure. 18 On the other hand, the Marxists, who
also adopt an economic interpretation, consider anti-
semitism as a weapon of the exploiters to deflect the
attentions of the expropriated proletariat away from its
real enemy, capitalism. A third theory, somewhat related
to the first, asserts that the main cause of the Jewish
plight is of a politico-ethnic character, that is to say, that
the Jews everywhere persist as an alien minority amid
a homogeneous majority and as such must obviously
invite the enmity of the nationalist whose aim it is to

34

attain the uniformity of nationality and culture. 19 Yet
another theory employs terms such as race, colour and
blood in its view that the Jew is biologically of a dif-
ferent and lower order than the rest of mankind. 20
Accordingly, since it is impossible for the Jew to escape
from his fate, anti-semitism was, is and eternally will be.
The newest interpretations are contributed by the social
psychologists who use terms such as frustration, personal
insecurity, rebellion against authority, displaced aggres-
sion, and sadistic urge all and any of which attitudes
find concrete expression and outlet in the hatred and
persecution of the Jews. 21

This very fragmentary treatment of the various ap-
proaches to anti-semitism serves to point out how numer-
ous and widely differing in results are the attempts to
arrive at a single, basic, primary cause. Just as numerous
and various are the attempts to find the solution to this
age-old problem. In this respect some of the less drastic
theories favour more scientific and humanistic educa-
tion and the furtherance of social relations amongst
Jews and non-Jews. Others maintain that the promotion
of economic prosperity will minimise the effects of
Jewish competition in other words, only by consider-
able changes in the social and economic order can anti-
semitism be vanquished. More radical propositions are,
on the one hand, that the Jews should merge completely,
socially and religiously, in the dominant community
and, at the other extreme, that the Jews should end once
and for all their minority status by becoming a mono-
lithic 'one State, one People* community in Palestine.
Psychoanalysis calls for greater scientific controls and
techniques in an attempt to find out why certain per-
sonalities are more prone to anti-semitism than others.
Further, there are the numberless less serious approaches

35

advocating the elimination of certain Jewish traits and
unconsciously demanding a perfection in the Jew such
as obtains in no other being. It is somewhat easier to
enumerate the suggested interpretations and solutions
of the problem than to assess their individual merits. I
shall confine myself to the more important of them and
briefly comment on what I consider to be their limita-
tions.

That education, both in the narrow sense of the
assimilation of factual data and in the comprehensive
sense of the training and development of character, can
be of immeasurable importance in individual relation-
ships is beyond doubt. But different considerations arise
in a group problem such as is involved in the case of the
Jews. What may be of extreme educative value on the
level of the individual, may be impotent in the face of
tension on the social and international plane. Further-
more, practical experience dictates a certain caution in
attributing to education virtues which, in certain in-
stances, it does not possess. The existence of hatred and
intolerance among the so-called literate and civilized
and the frequent absence of prejudice in the intercourse
of the simple and uneducated is a reminder of the dif-
ficulties to be encountered in entertaining the solution
that more education will necessarily mean less bigotry.

Similarly, those who advocate a re-stratification of the
economic order are subject to the same limitations of
over-simplification. While there is no doubt that eco-
nomic changes might eliminate the historically con-
ditioned 'marginal' character of Jews in the economic
field (a role over which the Jews had no control), such
changes would not necessarily lessen the vulnerability of
the Jews to attacks which are unrelated in their origin
to economic relations. The counsel that Jews should

36

actively sink their individual differences of social mores
and religion into the wider uniformity of the non-
Jewish community is based on two hypotheses hardly
susceptible of proof: the first, that the non-Jews will
willingly accept into their society such assimilated Jews
such evidence as there is shows only too clearly that at
least in the past they have not done so and the second,
that such a remedy is one which Jews themselves can
be persuaded to adopt. All else apart one cannot discuss
a problem in vacuo as if personal, spiritual and historical
factors did not exist. Furthermore, the so-called solution
of assimilation (when applied to an entire people) is, in
essence, diametrically opposed to a democratic society.
Democracy advocates equal rights for all cultural and
ethnic groups and dare not, save at the risk of its own
annihilation, seek to impose a dominant way of life
and thought on a minority, a minority which has, as it
happens, made inestimable contributions historically
to the living sources of democracy.

In contradistinction to the idea of uniformity through
assimilation, there is that of segregation through the
territorial concentration of Jews. Such a solution, in-
sofar as it may be one, is being realized in Israel at this
very hour. There can be no doubt that the creation and
development of a Jewish community in a normal and
completely Jewish atmosphere will cut away at the roots
of anti-semitism in at least one corner of the globe.
There can likewise be no doubt that this heroic experi-
ment is having, and will have, a profound effect on Jews
and non-Jews throughout the world. Men of good will
everywhere hope that it will create a new vision of the
Jew to replace the distorted image which has so trag-
ically characterized him throughout the ages. But to
suppose that anti-semitism will disappear or be con-

37

siderably lessened with the withdrawal of a fraction of
the Jewish people to one soil, betrays a fundamental
error in the interpretation of the problem. A nationalist
remedy, however perfect in other respects can never be
applied to a disease which is, of its nature, an atrophy of
the human heart. Here I touch upon the main criticism
which is to be levelled against all such remedies as I
have briefly mentioned.

I must repeat that the work of those who have under-
taken the study of the problem from different socio-
logical angles is of extreme value. They have shed new
light on a dark and horrifying tragedy. Each has ven-
tured forth alone in his own particular world to return
with tidings which according to his eyes seem good but
their virtue is also their imperfection. Their peculiar
partiality is their limitation. They have preoccupied
themselves with the superficial proximate occasions to
the exclusion of the basic causes. In the result we have
had recourse to consider the various types of anti-
semitism political, economic, social and psychological,
but anti-semitism per se as a distinct phenomenon would
not, it seems, exist at all. It is true that these various
types do exist. Late nineteenth-century Bismarckian
Germany was in fact that cradle of modem political
anti-semitism which later in this century culminated in
the Nazi frenetics of Nuremberg and Auschwitz. More-
over there is ample evidence that anti-semitism expresses
itself also in the outbursts of certain economically in-
secure sections of the community against the Jew whom
they imagine to be a partner in a universally prosperous
hegemony aiming to dominate and enslave them. Yet
again anti-semitism appears in the malicious attacks of
the envious and frustrated who attribute to the Jews all
the qualities of ambition, energy and creativeness which

they lack or think they lack. But what we have in all
these cases is not anti-semitism traced to its source, but
the political, economic and social exploitation of an evil
which in its essence is neither exclusively political,
economic or socialist in origin. Jean Paul Sartre in his
Portrait of the Anti-Semite (and this is Its chief merit),
has valiantly attempted to analyze the tortuous and in-
consistent elements of the psychology of the anti-semite
and has shown how extremely difficult it is to subject it
to a rational critique. 22 This estimate is referable to the
different forms of anti-semitism we have been discussing.
They are the social rationalizations of a malady which
is hidden in the depths of the human soul. Even if we
were to accept the validity of these forms it is pertinent
to enquire why, if minorities are apt to arouse hostility
among majority communities, does the Jewish minority
provoke that hostility to a degree and order unknown
in the case of any other? Why are criticisms directed
against Jews which could not possibly be directed
against any other group within the community even
assuming that it embodied the same alleged faults and
imperfections? Why in the case of the Jews do otherwise
responsible people adopt standards of judgment and
credulity which dispense with all semblance of logic and
reason? 23

It is in the attempt to answer these questions that we
realize the limitation of the rationalistic and liberal
approach to anti-semitism. We do not mean rationalism
has to be discarded; it has to be transcended. In probing
to the deeper roots of anti-semitism amid sub-conscious
strata of experience it is necessary to establish an em-
piricism based on intuitive insights rather than on scien-
tifically demonstrable phenomena. Confronted with the
inter-action of the creatureliness of the human being

39

and the Divine will of God we come face to face with
reality on a level which makes the greatest demands
upon our faith, love and charity. In this confrontation
the emphasis is not upon the impersonal character of
social interpretations, but upon the intensely personal
situation of man and man. Seen in this perspective,
anti-semitism in essence is not the misdeeds of the un-
civilized few, or the mere peripheral by-product of a
nation's malevolence or the imperfections of society.
Rather does it lay bare the evil inclination of man him-
self and the degradation of his divine image. Our direct
concern here is not society but man, his nature, his evil
and his destiny.

It is on this plane, and more particularly from the
Christian point of view, that Berdyaev approaches the
question of anti-semitism. Proceeding from the propo-
sition that such interpretations of anti-semitism as have
been touched upon here do not go deeply enough into
the problem, Berdyaev concludes that the hatred of the
Jews is an alienation of man which is rooted in his sin-
fulness. And where you have the fact of human sin there
you find also rebellion against the Christian idea and
the Christian ideal awaiting its fulfilment in historic
terms. Hatred of the Jews is not so much a problem for
historians and sociologists as it is a challenge to true
Christians, going to the roots of their belief and prac-
tice. For Berdyaev, as for many Christians, the Jewish
question belongs to the mysteries of human existence,
that is to say, it is not a question which cannot at all be
solved, but one which is not at its heart amenable to
rational and logical analysis, for it cannot even be com-
prehended without drawing on the inexhaustible sources
of the human spirit.

Berdyaev was not an orthodox Christian in the West-

40

ern sense o the term. Indeed it Is extremely difficult to
classify him in terms of belonging to 'the Russian
Church* or as a proponent of a doctrine or even as an
adherent to a particular theology. His subjects are God,
Christ and man and in these Berdyaev moves, lives and
has his being. The pattern of his thought was not of
the logical discursive order of the philosopher but of
the visionary's intuitiveness. He is essentially not a
philosopher or theologian but a mystic. Knowledge, for
Berdyaev, is not a rationally conceived body of philo-
sophical or theological doctrine but a supreme intuitive
or creative insight into the meaning of existence. The
term 'mystery' for him means a reality which can be
penetrated only by an immediate contact with the world
of the spirit, a contact which, in effect, transforms the
conventional subject-object relationship into one where
the knower and the known enter into a union which,
though concrete and 'existential' within the subject, is
not expressible in terms of rational objectivity. 24 This
distinction in Berdyaev between rational and supra-
rational degrees of knowledge is one of the main charac-
teristics of his approach to the Jewish as indeed to any
other question. In this respect he is at one with other
Christian thinkers but he is also strikingly dissimilar
from them in the sense that he is implacably opposed to
what he calls the 'objectivisation' of the human spirit
which finds its expression everywhere in this so-called
Christian world not least in the Hellenic rationalization
of human experience that is found in much of Christian
dogma. 25 This opposition is displayed in his attack on
certain traditional western forms of Christianity which,
he maintains, are to be found at the root of the Jewish
problem and the genesis of the centuries-old persecu-

41

tion. This is the main theme of Berdyaev's thought
concerning the relationship of Christianity and the Jews*

The Christian interpretation of the Jewish situation
is, generally, dominated by three central notions 'the
Chosen people/ 'the crucifixion of Christ by the Jews'
and 'the conversion of the Jews.' 26 These three ideas
have played a considerable r61e in the persecution of
the Jews by Christianity throughout the ages and it is
this r61e which Berdyaev condemns boldly and un-
equivocally and with the prophetic indignation and
fearlessness reminiscent of a P^guy or a Lon Bloy. In
doing so he does not play the part of a Christian heretic,
as many have considered him, but as one who more
perhaps than others, sees in true Christianity the key to
the understanding of human life and destiny. He re-
volted instinctively against any attempt to enslave man-
kind with stultifying rationalizations of high ideals and
his revolt is no less fierce when that rationalization is a
Church. Freedom from spiritual slavery consists in the
progressive unceasing creative effort to escape from a
Christianity when it becomes a mere authoritarian eccle-
siology.

One of the reasons assigned to the survival of the
Jewish people has been their conviction of having been
elected by God. To Berdyaev the nature of the Jewish
people in thus becoming inextricably bound up with
God is at the heart of the Jewish tragedy and the con-
clusive answer to those who would attempt to classify it
in general categories. A people that encountered God at
Sinai as a people cannot have a history like that of
other peoples. It has been preserved up to the present
through all the stupendous changes and all the misfor-
tunes of the centuries since . * it enjoys the privilege of
having God Himself as its law-giver/ 27 This doctrine of

the chosen people, which, if it confers a privilege at all,
is a privilege of responsibility. It implies above all that
the Jewish people accepts the call of its election not
automatically but only by assuming the 'yoke of the
Kingdom of God/ The principle of superiority has ab-
solutely no place in this doctrine. The essence of elec-
tion is heaven-ward responsibility, not self-glorification.
For how otherwise can the fulminations of the Prophets
against the abuses of election have any meaning? That
the Jews have been chosen by God implies the unique
function of Israel to proclaim the importance of Divine
justice among the nations: but the Christian interpreta-
tion of election has served as a weapon to chastise the
Jews. Many Christians contend that the Jews were in-
deed the elect of God (for what Christian could refute
such abundant evidence as the Old Testament affords?)
but that they forfeited that status when they rejected
Jesus as the Christ. That this was not so was testified
pre-eminently by the Apostle Paul himself in his inter-
pretation of the meaning of the elect. 28 But, the words
of Paul notwithstanding, historical Christianity has
claimed the right to the mantle of the chosen people
which the Jews let fall by their rejection of Jesus. Ber-
dyaev, departing radically from conventional Christian
thought on this point, speaks of the unwillingness of
Christians to acknowledge the Jews as a people with a
unique religious destiny. Berdyaev recognizes its dy-
namism in the religious history of Israel and analyses
the historical and spiritual factors in Jewish thought
which militated against Israel's acceptance of a God
made man. The words of Berdyaev 'awaken memories
of the hundreds of years in which stress upon the Jews'
rejection of Christ has served to fan the flame of perse-
cution and hatred of the children of Israel/ 29

43

The dual claim of Christians throughout the cen-
turies, that the Jews both rejected and crucified Christ,
is one that has wrought untold misery on the Jewish
people. It is a claim which is embedded in a host of
factors, spiritual, historical and psychological. The part
that the Catholic and Protestant churches have played
in the persecution of the Jews in this respect is at once
considerable and tragic. At the base of many types of
anti-semitism which are, on the surface, neither religious
nor theological they may be even agnostic or atheistic
there can be found the seeping and corroding influ-
ence of an early religious training which has served to
perpetuate the myth that *the Jews killed Christ/ The
crucifixion story as preached and taught by the majority
of Christians can have no religious import whatsoever.
It can only impress the mind of the young with images
which prevent them thereafter from looking upon Jews
in a normal light. The harm once inflicted is ineradi-
cable. It becomes a rampart which no lectures, sermons,
conferences on brotherhood and inter-faith fellowship
can hope to penetrate. Historical veracity on the one
hand and the cruelty of the theory of vengeance on the
other have no place in the doctrines of Christianity,
both Catholic and Protestant. The rejection and cruci-
fixion of Christ by the Jews has become the central pivot
of Christian indoctrination regardless of the fact that
such teaching disseminates the very seeds of the negation
of Christ and the object of his teachings. Berdyaev not
only denounces such forms of Christianity but merci-
lessly advances the 'crucifixion' theory to its logical con-
clusion. He is not so much concerned with the historical
Jesus, but with the Jesus of universal love and grace.
Even assuming that the Jews did crucify Jesus, argues
Berdyaev, they were also the first to follow him. The

44

particular historical situation, whatever it may have
been, can have no relevance to the central issue which
always was and will be this where there is hatred,
persecution, ignorance and prejudice with regard to the
Jews, there too is the crucifixion of Christ. Crucifixion,
for Berdyaev, is not an historical point in time, it is a
passion which is experienced at every moment. It is a
source of great sorrow for Berdyaev that, not least among
the crucifiers are the Christians who have for centuries
accused the Jews of the very crime of which they them-
selves are the most culpable. It is furthermore a sin for
Christians to arrogate to themselves the heavy responsi-
bility of passing judgment on others, for that preroga-
tive belongs to God alone.

The Christian desire to convert the Jews has through-
out the Christian world likewise contributed greatly to
the momentum of anti-semitism at various epochs. This
missionary zeal is fraught with many dangers for both
Christians and Jews. When the missionary desires to
convert the Jew in the advancement of his own sectarian
interests, the Jew will react violently. The spiritual
arrogance of those who assert that they alone have the
true faith while others are in error cannot but result in
the exacerbation of existing antipathies and cause great
psychological harm to the Jews. On the other hand, the
desire to convert the Jews to Christ without member-
ship of a particular church militates against certain
forms of Christianity, not least Roman Catholicism,
which cannot desire such conversion without negating
the cardinal principles of its own doctrine. This dis-
tinction between conversion to Christ and conversion to
Christianity is the touch-stone of the many difficulties
which attend the efforts of Christian missionaries. Ber-
dyaev believes that conversion to the spirit of Christ in

45

certain circumstances may be possible but condemns the
Christian churches for attempting to convert Jews by
'holding the knife to their throat/ For Berdyaev, con-
version to Christ is an intensely personal matter and
cannot possibly be considered as a practical solution for
a people like the Jewish people. Rather, says Berdyaev,
should Christians convert themselves into living Chris-
tians and not nominal external Christians who beneath
the surface of rite and ceremonial commit acts which
constitute a perversion of the spirit and the meaning of
Christ. If, indeed, observes Berdyaev, Jews are to be
converted it cannot possibly be done by a Christian
civilization which is shot through with hatred, national
rivalries, wars and oppression, for these are evidence of
the absence of Christ in the modern world and the
frustration of his designs for the Kingdom of God.

Berdyaev's observations on the Jewish question and
its relation with Christianity are to be found in many
of his works as well as in the preceding essay. Written
in 1940 before the Nazi holocaust had entered its most
savage phase, certain parts of it would seem to be out-
dated. 30 In so far as it alludes to topical events this is
indeed so, but for its insight into a problem which
remains after the defeat of the erstwhile enemy it is of
lasting significance. His message is addressed to Chris-
tians and forms an integral part of his message to his
generation on all issues which affect Christian life.
Berdyaev's thought is an adventure rather than a closed
system since he does not claim to proceed along the
theoretic lines of academic philosophy. 31 'I have deliber-
ately over-stepped the limits of philosophical, theological
and mystical knowledge so dear to the Western mind as
well in Catholic and Protestant circles as in the sphere
of academic philosophy/ 82 The true aim of the thinker

according to Berdyaev Is first to accept the polarity of
life's experience and then to live out the paradox to its
ineluctable conclusion. This is perhaps one of the most
singular characteristics of Berdyaev. He is more con-
cerned to live out his thought existentially than to
present a balanced scheme of thought that pleases the
mind but offends the spirit. In this respect he is an
existentialist in the line of St. Augustine and Kierke-
gaard rather than a creator of rational systems in the
line of Leibnitz and Hegel. If the relentless struggle for
Christ so demands, doctrines hitherto established and
accepted must be repudiated and discarded. Berdyaev
was indeed a religious revolutionary whose speculation
about God was bound up with and inseparable from
the destiny of man. The meaning of human existence
is to be found in the interdependence of God and man
and the interpenetration of the human and divine
worlds. There can be no interpretation of man on earth
unless it is also a prophetic vision of his greatness in
heaven. When that vision is bounded by the restrictions
on his own nature to the exclusion of influences higher
than himself, then in that moment there is no God and
man has died. This biblical relationship between man
and God is one that cannot subsist merely in coruscating
speculations. It is a challenge by God which can only be
met by a response from man and that response must be,
for Berdyaev, a creative act rather than a credal or
intellectual defence. The divinity of man has ontological
foundations in human nature and is not the result
merely of an historical event. 3 The drama of love be-
tween God and man is one that is enacted in every
generation, in every age, at every moment of the Chris-
tian life. The modern world gives ample evidence of the
twilight of a civilization which has yielded uncom-

47

promisingly to a distorted humanism by shutting out
God and isolating man. The turning point of human-
ism against man constitutes the very tragedy of modern
times. Humanism destroyed itself by its own dialectic . . .
for the putting up of man without God against God
leads to man's own negation and destruction.' 34 Modern
society and all its concomitant evils stand condemned
by Berdyaev as products of a secularized humanism
which robs the Christian spirit of its dynamism and
produces in its turn a civilization which, for all its pre-
tension, is anti-Christian and inhuman. The only escape
for man from his self-willed isolation from the God of
the Bible is to restore the original relationship between
man and God. 35 The only alternative to a civilization
which has throughout the ages crucified Christ is the
Christianization of man not of his Churches, his doc-
trines or his creeds but of his own personal life. The
only answer to the challenge of an evil world is the
fulfilment of the Christian ideal. As Berdyaev himself
writes in the autobiographical introduction to his Free-
dom and the Spirit, 'all the forces of my spiritual and of
my mental and moral consciousness are bent towards
the inward understanding of the problems which press
so hard upon me. But my object is not so much to give
them a systematic answer as to put them forcibly before
the Christian conscience/

It is against this background that Berdyaev's approach
to the Jewish problem as outlined in the preceding
essay must be considered. Hatred, all hatred, is a sin.
Hatred of an entire people is akin to murder. When
that people is the Jewish people without which Christ
and Christianity are inconceivable, professed Christians
enlist in the forces of the anti-Christ. 'Semitism,' writes
Berdyaev elsewhere, 'has been grafted on to the Chris-

tian spirit and is indispensable to its destiny.' 36 Anti-
semitism is a revolt against the will of God that can
only be humbled by the confrontation of God by man.
In this respect Christian civilization has much to atone
for. While preaching brotherhood of man it has in-
dulged in intolerance and persecution on a scale which
recalls the primitive darkness of a pagan world. While
purporting to promote ideals of peace, harmony and
universal unity through Jesus Christ it has readily con-
demned those whom it considers beyond salvation ex-
cept through its own faith. In order to safeguard the
reality of the historical Jesus it has, through anti-semi-
tism, participated in the denial of that which it seeks to
affirm and become an idolator of 'historical sanctities/
In the name of preserving a Church it has tolerated and
worked evil in its own midst. The service of Jesus Christ
has in this way become a Jesuolatry of the most enslav-
ing kind. By pronouncing judgment on the Jews as a
smitten and eternally damned people it has shown an
arrogance which has consumed the vitals of its own
message. It has and this is worst of all relieved the
Christian of his personal responsibility in face of the
evil of anti-semitism and granted him refuge behind an
official barrier of ecclesiasticism. Berdyaev denounces
the Christianity of such a civilization in clear and un-
mistakable accents. His essay, addressed primarily to the
Christian world, is not and does not claim to be the final
answer to the problem of anti-semitism. It is a method-
ological error in approaching anti-semitism to believe
that its study will produce solutions as if it were a scien-
tific or mathematical problem. In anti-semitism we come
face to face with man, his evil, and his potential spiritual
greatness in surmounting that evil. Spiritual reform as
advocated by Berdyaev is not a solution but a task, not

49

an end but a beginning. The tenor of his essay reflects
Berdyaev's impatience with those who would reject the
'proximate* human solution in favour of the disillusion-
ment of what they imagine to be the final answer to the
problem. No interpretations and no solution can be
adumbrated without considering the individual respon-
sibility that each Christian bears for the existence of
anti-semitism. In many ways Berdyaev's essay is a con-
fession of sin, a sin that can and must be expiated by
Christians in the light of their supreme faith in the
dignity and worth of the individual as precious in the
eyes of God.

The Christian can no longer rest in exclusive doc-
trines as if they were divine judgments and not, as
indeed they are, human conjectures. The true Christian
can no longer believe that grace is stored up for the
Church whilst for ever denied to those who do not bear
allegiance to the Church. The Christian who affirms he
has seen and lives in Jesus the Christ must bear the
responsibility for his presumptiveness in proclaiming
that there can be no peace and no rest for a people that
has chosen to follow its own spiritual destiny. If the
Church chooses to create a boundary between the saved
and the damned by substituting what it conceives to
have been an historical moment for the message of
Christ, then the true Christian may be duty-bound to
leave its confines. ST This is the gravamen of Berdyaev's
thought on the problem of anti-semitism. He confronts
his readers with a challenge which demands a personal
response, transcending the limitations which ecclesioc-
racy would seek to impose. Anti-semitism in all its forms
must be condemned by the Christian not only in its
formal encyclicals, its edicts and its institutions, but in

50

the personal Christian act and in the flowering of the
Christian spirit.

Revelation means, if it means anything at all, that the
Christian must struggle not with others but with him-
self and in his triumph he will have conquered not
the wickedness he sees, or thinks he sees, in others, but
the evil which lies buried in his own soul.

5 1

NOTES

i. French Catholic, a novelist, philosopher and Christian
thinker (1846-1917), whose vigorous style and prophetic
condemnation of contemporary society made him one of the
most dominating figures of his time. A study of his life and
work has recently appeared: Leon Bloy Pilgrim of the
Absolute, edited by Rai'ssa Maritain with an introduction
by Jacques Maritain (London, 1948). Many of Berdyaev's
thoughts on the Jews can be traced to Bloy's writings. The
quotation here is from his Le Vieux de la Montague which
also contains the striking words: 'Anti-semitism ... is the
most horrible slap in the face suffered in the ever continuing
Passion of our Lord. It is the most stinging and the most
unpardonable because He suffers it on His Mother's Face
and at the hands of Christians/

2. Louis Ferdinand Celine (Destouches) psychopathic
French anti-semite. Berdyaev is most certainly referring to
his Bagatelle pour un Massacre (1938). Celine, after fra-
ternising with the Germans, was after the war exiled to
Copenhagen. In a statement issued by him by way of de-
fence to charges of collaboration with the Nazis, Celine
wrote: 'The Jews should erect me a statue for the harm I
omitted to do them though I could have done/

3. One of the most remarkable of nineteenth-century
Russian religious philosophers. A Platonist, he pleaded for

the effective realization of Christian truth both in the per-
sonal and in the social worlds. See Berdyaev's The Russian
Idea (pp. 214-215) and Slavery and Freedom (p. 229). He
also concerned himself profoundly with the subject of birth,
sex and death and his ideas thereon are formulated in his
The Meaning of Love (London, 1945).

4. Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882). French diplo-
mat and man of letters who wrote widely on ethnological
and philosophical subjects. His Essai sur UlnegaliU des
Races Humaines, to which Berdyaev here refers, maintained
that the nobility of a nation and its capacity to produce
creative talent and genius depended upon its Aryan racial
content. He was the father of racial anti-semitism and
profoundly influenced the English-born Houston Stewart
Chamberlain whose The Foundations of the Nineteenth
Century (London, 1899) became the classic of intellectual
racial anti-semitism.

5. One of the most notorious forgeries of the century.
Originally a satire on Napoleon III written by a French
Catholic lawyer (Dialogue aux Enfers entre Montesquieu et
Machiavel), it was refurbished to appear as the secret plot
of the Jews to achieve world domination. The background
of this fantastic document and its eventual exposure is
contained in an admirable chapter in James Parkes' An
Enemy of the People^ Anti-semitism (London, 1945).

6. It is worthy of note to recall Freud's interpretation of
the Jewish question in his Moses and Monotheism: 'The
hatred for Judaism is at bottom hatred for Christianity and
it is not surprising that in the German National Socialist
revolution this close connection of the two monotheistic
religions finds such clear expression in the hostile treatment
of both* (p. 145). Akin to this theory but from a different
viewpoint is that of Maurice Samuel in his The Great
Hatred (London, 1943).

7. Berdyaev is referring to The Jews and Economic Life
published originally in Leipzig in 1911 by the French
Huguenot Werner Sombart which, in the economic field,
has been equated with Gobineau's essay in the racial sphere.

53

See Miriam Beard, op. cit. pp. 363 ff. Sombart's thesis has
been much modified by R. H. Tawney in his Religion and
the Rise of Capitalism and others.

8. This is the view expressed by, among others, A. Fan-
fani in his Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism (Lon-
don, 1939; p. 7).

9. Maritain wrote a significant essay Anti-semitism (Lon-
don, 1939) which, although written from an orthodox
Catholic viewpoint, has many points of contact with Ber-
dyaev in its denunciation of anti-semitism as a spiritual
crime and its call to Christians for a new humanism orien-
tated to the message of Christ. Maritain has some very
interesting comments on the Jewish question in Redeeming
the Time (London, 1943; pp. 123-172).

10. Berdyaev refers to the essay 'L'impossible Anti-s&ni-
tisme' published in Les Juifs (Paris, 1937) and in particular
to p. 54. The essay ends significantly with the same quota-
tion from Bloy as appears at the beginning of Berdyaev's.

11. The twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus.

12. Franz Rosenzweig died in 1929 at the early age of
forty-three after suffering from paralysis for over eight years.
A German Jew, he was one of the most prominent religious
thinkers of his age. His output was small in quantity, con-
sisting mainly of The Star of Redemption in which the
existential divine-human encounter idea is fully developed
and a volume of letters. Writing to his mother on the
subject of anti-semitism Rosenzweig remarks: "The fact of
anti-semitism, age-old and ever present, though totally
groundless, can only be comprehended by the different
functions which God has assigned to the two communities
Israel to represent the eternal Kingdom of God, Christian-
ity to bring itself and the world toward that goal/

13. Martin Buber was profoundly inspired by Rosenzweig
and in his turn has profoundly influenced many Christian
thinkers. His classic work I and Thou (Edinburgh, 1937) is
a poetic expression of the reality of spiritual life where the
human 'I* yearns for God not the objectivised God, to use
Berdyaev's phrase but the profoundly personal immediate

54

God the relationship between man and God which is first
encountered in the Bible. This theme is further developed
in his Between Man and Man (London, 1947)* The 'divine-
human* world of Berdyaev finds more than an echo in
Buber's Jewish conception of Israel. 'The unity of national-
ity and faith which constitutes the uniqueness of Israel is
not only our destiny, in the empirical sense of the word;
here humanity is touched by the Divine' (Israel and the
World, New York 1948 p. 169).

14. A sociologist and philosopher of history of the nine-
teenth century and a Russian precursor of Nietzsche and
Spengler. Berdyaev in The Russian Idea contrasts him with
Solovyev referred to above. Indifferent to the sufferings of
humanity and to the dignity and freedom of the individual,
Leontyev ended his life in a monastery.

15. Of the numerous studies dealing with the sources of
anti-semitism, perhaps the most comprehensive is Jews in a
Gentile World edited by Isacque Graeber and Stewart
Henderson Britt (London, 1942). This is a symposium to
which experts in the fields of sociology, history, psychology
and philosophy have contributed and demonstrates how
complex is the problem of anti-semitism. Particularly read-
able is James Parkes' The Jew and his Neighbour: a study
of the causes of anti-semitism (London, 1939).

16. For a broadly based historical introduction see H.
Valentin's Anti-semitism Historically and Critically Exam-
ined. London 1936.

17. This view is taken by Arthur Ruppin, the late Pro-
fessor of Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jeru-
salem, in Fate and Future of the Jewish People (London,
1940). See also on this point Louis Golding in The Jewish
Problem (London, 1938).

18. Miriam Beard in her paper 'Anti-semitism Product
of Economic Myths' in Jews in a Gentile World (pp. 362 ff.)
deals with economic factors that have been the alleged
source of so much anti-semitism.

19. Valentin, op. cit., pp. 18-19.

20. Valentin, op. cit., p. 51.

55

21. J. F. Brown; 'The Origin of the Anti-Semitic Atti-
tude' in Jews in a Gentile World (pp. 124 ff.): 'The Jew is
thus a particularly apt target for displaced aggression for a
variety of psychological as well as cultural reasons* (p. 140).

22. Sartre sees anti-semitism in A Portrait of the Anti-
Semite (London, 1948) not as an isolated approach to Jews
as such but a way of looking at the world prejudicing one's
whole outlook on life. 'Anti-semitism is something adopted
of one's own free will and involving the whole of his out-
look, a philosophy of life brought to bear not only on Jews
but on all men in general, on history and society; it is both
an emotional state and a way of looking at the world/

(p- 13-)

23. From the Jewish side, the novelist Sholem Asch
remarks passionately: 'Anti-semitism is not a movement.
It is a disease. He who is infected with it is unable to have
an orientation, a judgment or an opinion which is a result
of logical thinking or of actual facts. The anti-semite has
no proof, no opinion, no consciousness even, because proof,
opinion and consciousness are attained through independ-
ent thought. He has no independent thought, he is impris-
oned within the magic circle in which his sufferings have
immured him/ (One Destiny. New York, 1945,* pp. 37-38.)

24. Berdyaev develops this point, in particular, in the
first chapter of his Spirit and Reality (London, 1939).

25. This use of the term 'objectivisation* in Berdyaev
denotes briefly the substitution of symbols for the realities
they are supposed to represent. Thus, the primal aspect of re-
ligion is existential, spiritual and real, but through this
process of symbolization man has created forms, doctrines
and institutions which tend to become accepted as realities
while the true primal reality is lost. Berdyaev sees this tend-
ency at work in certain ecclesiastical conceptions such as
the Church which is forever threatening to become divorced
from its spiritual sources and thus, from a spiritual point
of view, an abstraction. See Spirit and Reality, ad loc.,
particularly pp. 53-55.

26. Students of the relationship between Christianity and

56

the Jews from the Christian point of view will welcome a
recent publication, profusely and learnedly annotated,
which will become a valuable source-book on the subject.
A. Roy Eckhardt in his Christianity and the Children of
Israel (London, 1948) examines the approach of the Chris-
tian Churches to the Jewish people, and his conclusions,
though he travels quite a different road, are in many re-
spects very similar to those of Berdyaev. For both, the
assertion of the Catholic and Protestant Churches that they
have the true faith, thus equating the Church and Truth, is
tantamount to idolatry. Both Churches have in the name of
Christ promoted anti-semitism by establishing principles
and dogma by reason of which they are forced 'to discrim-
inate against those who refused to recognise that the Church
possesses the Truth' (p. 153).

27. Quoted in Martin Buber's Israel and the World,
p. 171.

28. See the very important notes to pp. 40-41 of Eckhardt,
op. cit., where the author comments on the fact that Paul's
account in the eleventh chapter of Romans of the plight of
Israel has received scant attention from many writers on the
subject. It is to be noted that from the standpoint of neo-
Reformation relativism (represented, among others, by
Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Emil Brun-
ner and Karl Barth) the refusal to give absolute authority
to the Pauline interpretation of the Jewish question in
Romans chapters 9-11 and elsewhere, as reflected in the
writings of the orthodox Catholics and Protestants, accords
with an approach to the Bible not dissimilar from that of
Berdyaev.

29. Eckhardt, p. 44.

30. The title-page of the French version entitled Le
Christianisme et I'Antisemitisme indicates that it is itself a
translation from the Russian. I have been informed that
the text is based on a lecture given by Berdyaev in Paris in
1938 at one of the public meetings of the Acaddmie Re-
ligieuse et Philosophique Russe of which he was President.
The Russian text was published by the Y.M.C.A. Press in

57

the review Put (The Way) in No. 56 of 1938. The same
Russian text seems to have been the basis o a short abridged
article by Berdyaev entitled 'The Crime of anti-semitism*
published in the American Journal, The Commonweal
(Volume XXIX, No. 26; April 1939). The translation pub-
lished here first appeared in England in Blackfriars (Octo-
ber, 1948) and later in The Wind and the Rain (Volume V,
No. 3; Winter 1948-49).

31. The introduction to Berdyaev's Slavery and Freedom
(London, 1949) gives an instructive autobiographical ac-
count of the progress and sources of the author's thought
and, in particular, its paradoxical character. Further auto-
biographical material, perhaps more in relation to Ber-
dyaev's thought than to his curriculum vitae, is to be found
in two books of Berdyaev published posthumously: Dream
and Reality (London, 1950) and The Beginning and the
End (London, 1952). Berdyaev insisted at all times that a
man's thought is not to be abstracted from his life. The one
is so woven into the other that at least of Berdyaev it can
be said that his thought was his life and lived through
heroically to the end.

32. Quoted in E. Lampert's Nicolas Berdyaev and the
New Middle Ages (London, 1946; p. 25): 'I was never a
philosopher of the academic type and it has never been my
wish that philosophy should be abstract and remote from
life' (Slavery and Freedom, pp. 7-8).

33. Carl Pfleger's Wrestlers with Christ.

34. Berdyaev's The End of our Time. See Lampert, op.
cit., p. 72.

35. 'The Bible is a book of revelation because there is no
objectivisation in it, no alienation of man from himself
(Slavery and Freedom, p. 245).

36. Berdyaev's The Meaning of History (London, 1936;
p. 106). Berdyaev's chapter on the Jews elaborates many of
the points touched upon in this essay.

37. See Eckhardt, op. cit., pp. 97-98.

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